Bangladesh is all set to export rice to India as it is now waiting to get response from the latter over price proposals, officials said.
The country sent price proposals to India last month.
"We had sent a letter to India last month through our Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We are awaiting their response. Once we get their reply then we will start exporting rice," a joint secretary of the Ministry of Food (MoF) told the FE.
Earlier, India has expressed its interest through a letter to the MoF on December 17, 2014 to import rice from Bangladesh.
And after reviewing their proposals, the MoF had also sent reply on price proposals to India on December 21, 2014.
India is interested to import rice from Bangladesh mainly to meet its demand especially for its north-eastern region of seven sisters.
To export coarse variety of boiled rice, the government has amended the Statutory Regulatory Order (SRO) - a hurdle in the way of the country's move to shipment of food grain (rice export).
Bangladesh has started exporting coarse rice to Sri Lanka following their demand to supply 50,000 tonnes under government to government (G to G) basis. Price for per tonne of rice has been fixed at US $ 450.
Asked about the price proposals that Bangladesh have sent to India the officials said, "We proposed the price of per tonne coarse variety boiled rice between US $ 425 and $ 430 including shipment, insurance and other related costs".
"Initially they are ready to import 20,000 to 30,000 tonnes of rice from Bangladesh," the official said.
There will be no negative impact on exporting of rice to India as the country has sufficient stock of food grains, according to the traders and food department.
They said that the stock of rice in the warehouses of both public and private sectors is satisfactory. So, the proposed rice export to India will not create any adverse impact on the domestic rice market.
According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), the country's rice production was about 34.36 million tonnes in the fiscal year (FY) 2013-14, nearly 0.6 million tonnes higher than that of the previous fiscal.
The total stock of food grains in the country is now 1.49 million tonnes. Of the quantity, 1.11 million tonnes are rice that is 0.461 million tonnes more than the last year. The stock of wheat is now 0.34 million tonnes while paddy is 10,098 tonnes, according to the Directorate of Food.
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